I’m endlessly seeking shortcuts. In an effort to buy back precious minutes lost to reasons both cognitive and cultural, I’ve gamified my commutes, perpetually scanning my environment for more efficient ways to get where I need to go. With the precision of a skilled hunter, I skip entire city blocks by cutting through semi-public buildings, calculate the risks of jay walking across thoroughfares, and shamelessly trample diagonally across beautifully manicured, but inconveniently placed lawns. Sidewalks become mere suggestions. “Keep off the lawn” signs? Challenges. My need to get where I need to go as expeditiously as possible always superseding the plans set for me by some distant figure.  As creative as these choices may feel, these meanderings are not unique to me, but rather part of a centuries long tradition of living beings charting alternate paths.

They’re called desire paths, an undeniably romantic name conveying sentiments of yearning both illicit and indulgent. At their simplest definition, desire paths—also known as desire lines—are natural unpaved pathways created by human inclination and instinct, rather than planning. It’s the worn dirt path cutting through a grassy college quad. A sandy shortcut leading down to the beach. The track of slushy muddy footprints slashing through an otherwise pristine blanket of white after a snowfall.

The visuals can be arresting, poignant, even humorous, serving to convey seemingly universal truths about animals and humans alike. To some, desire paths are found art waiting to be discovered in the most prosaic of places. An exquisite corpse created collaboratively by paws, feet, or bicycle tires motivated through equal parts impatience and curiosity. To others, the trampled lines take on deeper symbolic meaning representing everything from charming ingenuity and independence to civil disobedience, protest, and even anarchy. In every case, desire paths illustrate a fundamental tension between theory and practice, planning and usage, and the myriad ways humans relate to their built and natural environments.